Three high school football teams from the Houston area will play for state championships on Saturday.
Two of the local teams have a history of competing at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, where the title games are typically played. The other, meanwhile, is making history just by being there.
C.E. King High School, a Sheldon ISD school in northeast Houston, is playing in a state championship game for the first time after not even qualifying for the playoffs a year ago. The Panthers (13-2) will face traditional power DeSoto (12-3) in the Class 6A Division 2 title game at 7 p.m. Saturday in what will be the final high school football game in Texas this year.
King earned its spot with a 58-41 win last week against Austin Vandegrift, the defending state champion.
The Panthers’ first-year head coach, Cory Laxen, was a longtime assistant coach at Galena Park North Shore. That team beat King during the regular season and on Saturday will compete for its sixth state title overall and first since 2021.
The Mustangs (13-2), who play at 3 p.m. in the Class 6A Division 1 final, are facing a familiar foe in Duncanville (12-1). The teams previously played each other in state title games in 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023, with North Shore winning the first three matchups during that span and Duncanville winning the last two.
The first title game in Arlington on Saturday is an 11 a.m. matchup between Richmond Randle (15-0) and Dallas South Oak Cliff (14-1), who are competing for the Class 5A Division 2 championship. Randle, a Lamar Consolidated ISD school that opened southwest of Houston in 2021, beat South Oak Cliff 38-35 in last year’s final. The Lions are going for a second consecutive undefeated season.
AT&T Stadium will host a total of 12 championship games between Wednesday and Saturday. Every game will be livestreamed for free on the Victory+ website.
For those interested in traveling to Arlington to watch the games in person, general admission tickets are $20 per day and can be purchased online through SeatGeek. Those with discount codes from participating schools can get tickets for $15.
Parking at AT&T Stadium costs $25 per day for vehicles or $50 per day for buses, according to the University Interscholastic League, which puts on the games.
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